The Imaginary Invalid (Pearl Theatre)

Molière has been credited with raising comedy to the same level as tragedy as an entertainment for intelligent people. The Imaginary Invalid, his final grand stroke, is a piece of sublime silliness that alone would have accomplished this elevation of comedy on the world stage. In this one play the greatest writer of comedy, perhaps ever, sharpens all his outrage at the practice of medicine, law, paternal tyranny, miserliness, marital infidelity, self-deception, other-deception, and hypocrisy of every stripe. There is an irony that Molière, after playing the leading role himself, a character so obsessed with his hypochondriacal ailments and so begrudgingly hungry to try every humiliating and absurd cure the medical profession has to offer, died on the very stage of his final triumph. Comedy has a way of getting to the core of serious things, and nowhere more cuttingly and more delightfully than in this performance.

Schedule From Week of October 24

Sunday, October 24 at 2pm
Wednesday, October 27 at 2pm
Thursday, October 28 at 8pm
Saturday, October 29 at 8pm
Sunday, October 31 at 2pm
Tuesday, November 2 at 7pm
Wednesday, November 3 at 2pm
Saturday, November 6 at 8pm
Sunday, November 7 at 2pm
Tuesday, November 9 at 7pm
Friday, November 26 at 8pm
Satuirday, November 27 at 2pm
Sunday, November 28 at 7pm
Thursday, December 2 at 8pm
Saturday, December 4 at 8pm
Sunday, December 5 at 2pm
Friday, December 10 at 8pm
Saturday, December 11 at 2pm
Sunday, December 12 at 7pm

For subscriptions to the Pearl Theatre Company’s 2004-2005 Season, click here.

For group sales, call Matthew Coleman, 212-505-3401, ext. 17 or email mcoleman@pearltheatre.org.